Art and theater reviews covering Seattle to Olympia, Washington, with other art, literature and personal commentary.
If you want to ask a question about any of the shows reviewed here please email the producing venue (theater or gallery) or email me at alec@alecclayton.com. If you post questions in the comment section the answer might get lost.

Monday, January 28, 2019

A staged reading at Olympia Family TheaterTed Ryle and Miriam Sterlin will host a staged reading of their original musical, The Alphabet Caper one night only, Sunday, Feb. 10.They hope to fill the OFT space with friends of the theater who can offer insights on how they can continue to shine it up! It's a work in progress. Theater people, they're seeking your input. "We’re hoping to produce this project in the next OFT season," Ryle says.The play transpires in Halonah’s bedroom. She’s a whip-smart, super creative elementary-aged girl. The letters (most of the characters in the show) are a figment of her imagination, and an expression of her creative and emotional life. Everything is peachy in her playground - she and the letters are making up songs, X and Y are helping her with her algebra homework- nothing but good times. Until Halonah learns she is having a baby sister, and her well-ordered world is turned upside down. Things start to go sideways in the alphabet. The vowels revolt against the consonants. Then one of the letters disappears entirely, and the caper commences! From Ted Ryle:Halonah loves letters, and the sounds they make. She just loves letters, and their twisty, turny shapes! “A, E, I love U, O yeah!” This magical, musical caper in two acts takes place in Halonah’s bedroom. Animation and live-action characters bring to life the Alphabetastics - a performing ensemble directly out of Halonah’s imagination. Halonah frolics with her frenetic, phonetic friends during most of the first act, exploring language and word play, figuring out her algebra homework with X and Y, and dancing the ‘Hopscotch, Hokey Pokey, Hand Jive’ with her favorite letter H, the female lead of the Alphabetastics. The alphabet is an expression of Halonah’s creative prowess, as well as a soothing salve when she is distressed - "All you have to do is breathe." H sings to help her calm her nerves. Then, the world shakes, things fall out of place, and Halonah’s well-ordered, letter-filled universe is turned inside out when she learns she’s having a baby sister. Soon the roil of her emotions explodes in to chaos amongst the alphabet, vowels revolt against consonants, tension abounds, and then H disappears altogether, launching us in to the caper of the vanishing letter: "A malevolent deed! Are none of us safe? Can someone please explain the disappearance of H?" Who is the alpha-culprit? Was it G, H’s neighbor? H modifies her, and sometime when H is around it’s as though G’s not even there! How about C, P or T? She modifies them too? Maybe it’s sticky fingers S. He’s always pocketing things- ‘More, mine, plural, possessive!’ Then suspicion centers on the eccentric end of the alphabet. Is it the inquisitive W, who aspires to the ingenue role currently played by H. Or X, who envies H, and misses being Halonah’s favorite letter, who loved her exotic, exceptional, mysterious ways. Y is the male lead of the alphabetastics. Maybe it’s him. And then there’s Z, as suspicious as can be . . . and not much else to do at the end of the alphabet. This play looks to be a unique, highly interactive, fantastical experience for the whole family. Silliness, and numerous sight gags will play to the youngest among us. Abundant word-play will enrapture those in the midst of expanded language discovery, and the nuance of the alphabet world with relational drama and occasional entendre will engage the olders in our audience. We hope you can join us. Please bring little people, if you have any handy! The Alphabet CaperFebruary 10, 6 p.m. Olympia Family Theater612 4th Ave E, Olympia, 360-570-1638.

Friday, January 25, 2019

More than 100 years ago
William Shakespeare wrote a play, Measure
for Measure, about the power differential between men and women. Inspired
by the #MeToo movement, actor, writer and director Christian Carvajal wrote an
adaptation of Measure for Measure
that will be performed as a one-night-only reading at Tacoma Little Theatre.

TLT Artistic Director
Chris Surface, who is also one of the actors in the reading, says, "TLT's Off the Shelf program is a
wonderful opportunity for pieces that might not fit into a normal season for
us. It gives directors an opportunity to play with topics and treatments and
work with actors who might not be able to commit to a full run of a show. When
Carv brought his idea for Measure to
Measure, I knew it would be a great fit."

Andrew Fry

Carvajal says, “I'd never seen or read a production of Measure
for Measure before 2017, but I read about a surge of interest in the
play as a result of the #MeToo movement and found that intriguing. The moment I
read it I understood the connection and resolved there and then to produce a
reading of it. It's often categorized as one of Shakespeare's ‘problem plays’
because its conclusion is seen as ethically unsatisfying. Duke Vincentio
(Andrew Fry), ostensibly the play's moral center, wraps up the plot in a way
that seems counterproductive to the legitimate goals of its heroine, Isabella
(Cassie Jo Fastabend, memorable as Ophelia in New Muses Theatre Company’s
recent productions of Hamlet and as
the title character in Lisistrata). I
think the lesson we've learned over the last few years is men cannot be counted
on to cede power and treat women fairly.”

Fastabbend says, “I consider finding relevance
in scripts a crucial job as a theater artist, especially when working with
Shakespeare. In Measure for Measure, there
unfortunately isn't a lot of digging that needs to be done to reveal how
strikingly similar the characters and story are in today's MeToo era. As an
actor and feminist, one who has been subject to sexual manipulation and assault
like so many other colleagues and friends, I find deep and important resonance
in Isabella's voice. She stands up for herself against all odds, demanding to
be heard regardless of the consequences: ‘Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak...it is ten
times true, for truth is truth to
the end of reckoning."

Fray says, "Several
things excite me about performing Measure
for Measure for Tacoma Little Theatre's Off the Shelf series. First, though
I have enjoyed several Off the Shelf performances I have never done one.
Secondly, even after little over a half century of acting in countless plays,
this will be the first time I will be doing Shakespeare. Finally, it is a blast
working with Carv."

Fry has performed in more than 45 productions
in the South Puget Sound area including three at TLT last season, as Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar and Tupolski in The Pillowman. He was last seen as
Scrooge in Scrooge the Musical at TLT
and as Callahan in Broadway Olympia's Legally
Blonde, and Alfie Doolittle in Tacoma Musical Playhouse’s My Fair Lady.

Carvajal says the lessons Shakespeare wrestled
with in Measure for Measure are
questions we’re still wrestling with in 2019.

On
Saturday, Jan. 19, Tacoma Art Museum celebrated the opening of the
new Rebecca and Jack Benaroya Wing, with its 4,800 square feet of new gallery
space including the gorgeous vista gallery with its 46-foot-wide window
projecting six feet out from the building’s north face. On display in the new
wing donated by Rebecca and Jack Benaroya is a collection of selected works
from their collection of some 353 glass-art pieces, one of the largest such
collections in the world. The entire collection is earmarked to eventually go
to TAM.

With this
collection, TAM now has more than 900 works of glass art in its permanent
collection. The opening exhibition, Metaphor
into Form: The Rebecca and Jack Benaroya Collection, includes iconic works
by Dale Chihuly, Howard Ben Tré, LinoTagliapietra,
William Morris, Dante Marioni and many other artists mostly associated with the
Pilchuck Glass School.

“Current,” a
30-foot long glass sculpture by Martin Blank,
is installed in the museum lobby. Blank is the artist who created the “Fluent
Steps” in the reflecting pool at the Museum of Glass. “Current” is a series of
rough aquamarine slabs of glass mounted on and behind metal strips and standing
wood beams. It represents the flowing waters of Puget Sound. It is monumental
and stunning due to the sparkling color of the glass, strong material contrasts
and sheer size.

The first piece
to greet viewers upon entry into the new Benaroya wing is Stanislav Libenský’s
“Green Eye of the Pyramid III,” a minimalist sculpture in cast, cut and polished
glass:a luminous, translucent and
mysterious pyramid that seems to bend magically as you look at it from
different points of view.

Morris’s blown
glass and metal animal sculptures that look for all the world like creatures
emergent from some prehistoric slime.These
creatures are displayed behind non-reflective glass in a display case that is interesting
in itself, being an integral part of the building built around a load-bearing
post.

Another display
that appears to be an integral part of the building is Charles LeDray’s dark
and foreboding “Jewelry Window” fabric, wood, glass and other materials set
between glass sheets 42 inches apart in a case that is built to look like a
window set into the wall. Any further description would spoil the effect of seeing
it in person.

A large part of the gallery — essentially a gallery within the larger
gallery ― is set aside for Debora Moore’s four almost-ceiling-high glass trees,
each tree representing one of the four seasons of the year. The technical
expertise required to make these trees, with
their limbs and details such as sprouting flowers and ice crystals and moss on
trunks and limbs, is astounding.

No ending date
has been set for this inaugural exhibition, but some of the works should be up
throughout 2019, and other works from the collection will be brought in.

Sunday, January 20, 2019

Another practically flawless
production by New Muses Theatre Company, and this time it is what many consider
the greatest play ever written: William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Director Niclas Olson, who also
wrote this adaptation and plays the leading role, downplays the “Melancholy
Dane’s” histrionics in much of the play, portraying him as a brooding and more inward-looking
young man – not to mention a spoiled and arrogant rich kid – so that when he
does give way to histrionics, it is explosive.

Common wisdom says a director
should be wary of directing himself, especially not in a leading role, but Olson
does just that quite regularly, and he does it spectacularly.

The small black box space of
Dukesbay Theatre lends itself perfectly to this “Hamlet.” The closeness of the
seating to the actors, each of whom enunciate clearly, make it easy to hear
every word, which is a real bonus because audiences often have difficulty
understanding Shakespeare.

The set and lighting (also by
Olson) is simplicity itself, a backdrop of starlight against a black curtain
and a single throne chair and no props other than a crop-down curtain and
folding chairs that are brought in for the play-with-a-play scene, and of
course the fencing foils and masks used in the bout between Hamlet and Laertes
(Xander Layden, who doubles as Guildenstern).

The setting is the present day.
The actors wear modern street clothes with no special adornment other than the
battle helmet worn by the ghost of Hamlet’s father (Juan Aleman II, who doubles
as King Claudius).

The lighting and costuming on
the ghost of King Hamlet is perfectly ghostly. He is barely seen, and in his
overcoat and helmet he looks powerful. Later, the dim lighting on the ghost of
Ophelia (Cassie Jo Fastabend) is a tad too dim but still effective.

There is a lot of double casting
in this version, and the cast members who double up do a credible job as
becoming totally and believably different people. Layden is excitable and
expressive as Laertes and more self contained as Guildenstern. When he performs
as a declarative actor in the play put on for the benefit of the king and queen,
his preening and posing seemed a parody of actors at the time. Angela Parisotto
is nervous and fluttery as Ophelia’s mother and becomes a quite comical character
as the grave digger.

Fastabend plays Ophelia
marvelously. In earlier scenes when she speaks of her love for Hamlet, her eyes
and her smile sparkle, making her adoration of the prince palpable.

Newcomer to South Sound stages Victoria
Ashley plays Rosencrantz and Barnardo with an intensity to match that of Olson’s
Prince Hamlet. This is cross-gender casting at its finest. I look forward to
seeing more of Ashley in future performances.

I attended a Sunday matinee
along with a handful of other audience members. There were far too many empty
seats in what is already a tiny house. Every show should be sold out; my
recommendation is get thee to Dukesbay.

Photo:

I
can’t remember when I’ve laughed so much as I did at opening night of Forbidden Broadway GreatestHits at Lakewood Playhouse. Forbidden Broadway is a musical review
spoof on almost every big hit musical in the past half century and longer in which
everybody gets skewered — from Ethel Merman to Carol Channing to Steven
Sondheim to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Since
opening Off-Broadway in 1982, there have been more than 20 editions of the show
in New York, London and Los Angeles, and each edition spoofs different shows
from Chicago
to Fiddler on the Roof, to Rent, Hello Dolly and Hairspray. Show business personalities
are known to wait in delicious anticipation to see if they’re going to be spoofed
next.

from left: Alexis Dyson and Katheryne Elliot in "Rent,"photo by Tim Johnson

It
is a show filled with great music, fabulously skewed lyrics making fun of
Broadway. The six-person cast in Lakewood Playhouse’s performance are not only
outstanding singers, they are skilled actors, impersonators, and dancers
(choreography by Ashley Roy, who is also in the cast).

Sharry
O’Hare, who said she did not want to even audition because she didn’t think she
could do impersonations, was talked into considering it and changed her mind.
She does a spot-on and knockout funny impersonation of Carol Channing.

Micheal O'Hara displays singing chops that will make
you go ga-ga when he performs as Mandy Patinkin singing "Somewhat Overindulgent"
to the tune of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Dawn Padula as Chita Rivera makes
fun of Rita Moreno in a medley of songs from West Side Story, until Katheryne Elliott
as Moreno joins her on stage to sing her version, and the two stars
(Moreno played Anita in the movie and Rivera played Anita on Broadway) trade
insults to the tune of "America" and other songs from West Side Story.

O'Hara makes fun of the great Bob Fosse with the tune
"Hey Bob Fosse” sung to the tune of "Hey Big Spender."

The entire ensemble is insanely hilarious doing “Ambition”
to the tune of “Tradition” from Fiddler
on the Roof.

Roy does a long solo impersonation of Liza Minnelli
in which she repeatedly brags that her mother is Judy Garland, and Padula does
an equally impressive impersonation of Barbara Streisand. The way she brushes
her hair away from her face is worth the price of a ticket.

Elliott also performs as Elle Woods
from Legally Blonde while cuddling a
dog, Alexis Dyson goes Into the Woods with
style, while Timothy McFarlan is a comically majestic as Cameron Macintosh, legendary
producer of such hits as Phantom of the
Opera, Cats and Les Misérables, the
latter of which gets more stage time than anything else.

I
could go on ad infinitum naming songs and stars but suffice it to say it is two
hours of non-stop song and dance, and every number is funny and performed with
knock-’em-dead skill.

As a bonus to all that laughter and music, there are
countless costume changes throughout with a myriad of inventive costumes designed
by Lauren Wells.

Friday, January 11, 2019

“Foundations” oil painting by Hart James, courtesy Tacoma Community College

Culture, the new exhibition at The Gallery at Tacoma
Community College, is billed as “an exhibition exploring the idea of cultural
biases and its influence on the outlook of other cultures.” This is one of the
most powerful, if not the most powerful group show ever to be mounted at TCC.
This is not to say that every work of art by every one of the 28 participating
artists knocks it out of the park, or even that every piece even belongs within
the theme; but there are enough that are stimulating, that have the capacity to
touch the hearts of viewers, and that are aesthetically praiseworthy — starting
with Bobbi Ritter’s series on the micro-brew culture of the Pacific Northwest.

There are five small assemblages in Ritter’s series, each with beer
bottles and other objects attached to boards and painted. It is as if brewpubs
had been wiped out by a volcanic eruption and this is the detritus that
remains, stuff stuck to walls and covered with lava and ash. And within the ash
are painted images, which relate to or are visual puns on the brands displayed.
The one with an Irish Death bottle features a painting of a skull; the one on
Wingman Brewery features Wingman beer cans, a model airplane and the painted
face of the pilot. With an extra eye. The series as a whole and each individual
piece is marked by visual variations and surprises within a unified whole.

Miles Styer’s entry is a model of a covered wagon that serves as a lamp
and reminds us about the lives of those who trekked across the country in wagon
trains. A wall label proclaims, “One side is a vision of opportunity and life;
the other is a vision of destruction and death.”

"Foundations" ceramics by Irene Osborn, photo by Alec Clayton

Irene Osborn’s ceramic sculpture “She Thought They Would Be Safe Once
They Crossed The Border” is an emotionally intense commentary on the plight of
refugees crossing into a new homeland where they are not welcomed. Roughly
sculpted in chalky white clay, it depicts a screaming woman with arms and hands
torn away, one unattached hand clutching an infant to her breast. Like Osborn’s
startling and poignant sculpture “Refugee” in TCC’s juried show in October,
this figure is hollowed out. The woman’s back opens into a deep cave, and
inside the cave is another figure of a mother holding a child. It makes you
want to cry or shout out in anger.

David Keyes’s “King Leopold II’s Legacy” is a
harsh reminder of the genocide of the Tutu tribe by the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda.
It is a dark construction in rusted metal with a row of six metal cage-like
structures with wax hands in them, in recognition of

Belgian plantation owners’ practice of cutting off the hands of workers
who didn’t produce enough.

A light-hearted but penetrating look at a common American cultural
phenomenon is Frank Dippolito’s oil painting, “Welcome to Missouri Milepost.”
It is a beautifully rendered painting of a billboard off an interstate highway,
standing in tall grass. The billboard advertises an “adult superstore.” A
smaller sign on the ground at the base of the billboard says “Christ died for
your sins.” The adult superstore ads are common in parts of the country. I
recently saw many of them in the drive through Louisiana and Texas. In addition
to being a telling image, Dippolito’s painting is a great example of
contrasting large and simple forms in complementary colors, in this case
vibrant pink and green.

Hart James’s “Foundations” is simply a great painting, although I’m not
sure how it relates to the theme. It is a dark and foreboding image of a man
emerging from rocklike formations.

Other pieces I enjoyed seeing were MaryBeth Haynes’s three sculptures of
strong and defiant woman and Lavonne Haivick’s “Coyote’s ‘End of Day,’”
sculptures of five long-legged and sad creatures that look vaguely like a cross
between coyotes and anteaters.

I can’t recommend this show highly enough.

Culture, noon to 5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, through March 15, Tacoma
Community College, Building 5A, entrance off South 12th Street between Pearl
and Mildred, Tacoma, visitor parking in Lot G.

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About Me

I am an artist and writer living in Olympia, Washington. I write an art review column, a theater review column and arts features for the Weekly Volcano, a community theater review column for The (Tacoma) News Tribune and regular arts features for OLY ARTS (Olympia).
My published novels are: This Is Me, Debbi, David; Tupelo; The Freedom Trilogy (a three-book series consisting of The Backside of Nowhere, Return to Freedom and Visual Liberties); Reunion at the Wetside; The Wives of Marty Winters; Imprudent Zeal and Until the Dawn. I've also published a book on art, As If Art Matters. All are available on amazon.com.
I grew up in Tupelo and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and have been living in the Pacific Northwest since 1988 where I am active in many progressive organizations such as PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).